


Tea, In So Many Words

by AstraKiseki



Category: Exalted
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Gen, Introspection, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-11
Updated: 2012-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-30 22:41:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstraKiseki/pseuds/AstraKiseki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years have gone by since the Celestial Host has filled out.  Sometimes the best thing to do is sit down and have some tea to let it soak in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea, In So Many Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LionessKate](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=LionessKate).



> This fiction is set in an Alternate History Earth where the Terrestrial and Sidereal Exalted have been around throughout the course of history, with the Solars, Lunars, and everyone else but the Alchemicals appearing in 1916. Heaven doesn't quite exist, the Catholic church is more gender-equal, and there's other little details, but otherwise, it's basically our world.
> 
> This specific piece is in celebration of hitting 500 xp in game; a gift to the ST, Lioness; and a sibling piece to [this picture](http://i42.tinypic.com/154y1jm.jpg/).

The quiet trickle of hot water into the cup filled the air with more than fluid sound and a soft fragrance to mask the drizzle and smell of rain.  Carefully and quietly, the fine green powder was whisked in, the astringent smell and old gestures bringing distant memories to the forefront.    
  
Simone de Bergerac drew in a slow, deep breath, his eyes fluttering shut as he leaned back against the tree, a foot idly tapping on the damp cobbled street below him.  Had it really been ten years?  Had he really been twenty ten years ago?  He had to admit, the world wasn’t what he had expected at age 30.  Not at all.  
  
What  had he expected?  Cold days, likely alone or clinging to someone, content in his duties, visiting home when he wasn’t busy...  
  
“Well, I got that right.”  He muttered to himself before taking another long drink to ward off the chill.  The Sidereal didn’t mind the cold in Geneva, especially in springtime, when everything was lush and green and alive.  There were worse places to be.  
  
Ten years ago, the Celestial Host had filled out in the crucible of war, the stars in the sky no longer alone.  Ten years ago, he was still trying to master the training that he had not been given so he could grow up normal.  Ten years ago, he was still in his trials, still trying to understand why his mentor had sent him away just weeks before the War.  The Chosen of Secrets Rasputin died that year, Simone had inherited his journal, any sort of belief in innocence rotting away with the loss of his own naivety.  
  
He could still remember that cold day, watching snow fall outside the house he resided in Japan, Oyuki setting the familiar tome down in front of him and murmuring apologies about what had come to pass.  The Serenity had taken the book numbly and hardly touched it for months, refusing to believe the truth of the matter, that the man he knew as family was dead.  
  
It had been 1917 and spring, the snow replaced by  sakura when he first opened the book.  And now, ten years later, that journal, with all of its insights and mysteries, was gone, lost to the Labyrinth.  
  
It was odd.  His Emerald and Iron Sacrifices had been simple, almost undetectable.  The journal had almost delicately picked away at the child-like thoughts he had then, the belief that everyone had goodness within themselves, that fate would make sure that everything would work out in the end, innocent, hopeful things.  After weeks of study, reading of the underpinnings of the world, the great and terrible things that his uncle had done for the sake of duty and fate... He found it impossible to really believe then.  
  
But he had still loved the world.  Such horrors existed, certainly, and everyone had some darkness within them, but that only made it all the more important to care.  Even as he read of atrocities, of dire decisions that had to be made, decoding words and colors and lights to find out more, he could  see the care and love that had been written, a light cast into the future to provide a spark of hope.  
  
Certainly, the original spark was dead, lost in the dark, but...  
  
It was in his eyes.  People had told him that.  Even with his glasses on, even after losing the book to the Sacrifice of the Sapphire and the Onyx Circles, people could see that fire, recognize the torch there, burning in his heart.  Charles was one of the few people who refrained from commenting on it, the Lunar merely reminding him to do his best not to get burned, asking for promises to ensure his own safety when the Full Moon couldn’t.  Him and Santina, the two people he... he loved, loved enough that they were two of the very few Passions that remained when he froze himself in crystal and drifted in the underworld as a ghost.   
  
Santina was in Italy though, likely her with Archer, showing him the sights of Rome for the first time.  He still could remember his own visit there by her side in 1922, half-dragging and pleading with the priestess for stories to compare with the lore he knew of the city, the two accidentally improvising a hymn together, sun and star singing in the heart of the Vatican and praising Heaven and the Dragons.  There was a faint stab in his heart, thinking of the Waxing Moon doing the same, but he was English, likely Protestant.  He wouldn’t understand nearly as well as the Sidereal did of their faith, what it meant to be Catholic.  
  
He glared at his empty cup, pouring in more hot water and more matcha, whisking it into another brew as he cast away the dark thoughts.  They weren’t kind ones after all, and he could trust the Lunar to respect Santina, just as he had for the last five years.  The throb of pain was just a jealousy that should not be there, was unworthy of the Sidereal, especially when there was no chance for him to state his intentions any clearer than he did as a ghost.  
  
He rolled his eyes upward with a sigh, staring at the branches above him.  Certainly, Simone could excuse the flush on his face from the tea, but he knew better.  Expected Pains sang to him when she was in danger, he trusted her more than any living person, even  Rasputin .  The Sidereal shrugged with a sip.  Such a trust was dangerous, but out of all the Exalted in the world, Santina was one of the least likely to betray such a trust.  He would carry the torch in her name forever, both in his heart and in his hand, seeking the darkness beyond her light and bringing it back by morning.  
  
As long as she didn’t go in after him, dimming her noonday light with the night he was born to serve.  He set his cup down with a clink, letting the tremor in his hands, the thought of her losing that shine, work its course. No, he didn’t like the idea, and he would rather not let her do so.  Others could do it, like him, and the Abyssals.  
  
They had been another surprise, their appearance five years ago, the true turning point for the Serenity, even more so than the infernal wild-cards a few years later at Corfu.  He reached out into the air, catching a phantom mote with a gentle tug, drawing it out into a string of midnight blue and twisting it about his fingers.  The delicate  pluck to Essence reverberated low and deep to his ears, the familiar prelude to the silence that came when he shaped the sorcery of the Underworld.  It wasn’t the hush that surrounded every Abyssal in the end, their Essences fading from anthems of their hearts into a void, but it was close enough to distress most.  
  
Simone idly played with the strand, stretching and pulling it like yarn, the color swirling in between the bright, jewel-tone hues of sorcery and the stark, dark shades of necromancy.  
  
The art of the dead was a quiet shock to Essence users, the discovery that the Abyssals wielded such a power, even greater when the youngest of the Fellowship had witnessed it and concluded its nature as a sibling to sorcery.  The Serenity had taken to it well, to the shock of the League, a concern when he had proposed he could talk someone into teaching it to him, one that even he had not expected.  But, in retrospect, it made sense for someone born under the Sorcerer, one born with a dead sister on his heels, to take to such magic.  
  
He supposed it was a bigger surprise when he mastered a second Circle of necromancy, but to him, it seemed perfectly normal.  There was a second circle of sorcery, why not necromancy?  Indeed, most of his theories and spells had been inspired by parallels in between the two fields and worlds, painting lines and connections to everything he could see.  
  
The Sidereal glanced out at the city, taking another sip of somewhat lukewarm tea, smiling to himself.  It should be about-  
  
“Trovato!”  
  
Simone smoothly caught the cup and rolled to the side, moving just enough for a blur of brown, yellow and something in between tumble down and land on him, not on stone or a fragile cup.  
  
“I see you found me, Mercutio.”  The Serenity smiled down at the young boy, tousling his brown hair with his free hand.  “The tea hasn’t even fully finished cooling.”  
  
“Really?”  Brown eyes lit up with pride, sitting up straight then peering at the tea cup, his nose wrinkling.  “... When is tea  green ?”  The young Italian boy stared up at him, his brow furrowed in confusion and his not-yet-yellow eyes bright with curiosity that he was certain Simone would answer.  It wasn’t an misguided assumption, the Serenity had to admit.  If it wasn’t in a book nearby, Simone often  did answer the questions he was given.  
  
“When it’s a specific type of tea, from a specific place.  Now,” He patted his student’s head again before he could be bombarded, “Get off of me so I can pick up my tea set and we can head back.  The Field Marshal is probably waiting for us both, and Oyuki-sensei can explain all about green tea to you.”  
  
Once Mercutio hopped off, Simone quickly gulped down the rest of his tea before wiping it dry, packing away the thermos and little box of green powder into his bag.  Once he was set, he nodded and proceeded to walk.  With the first step, the boy bolted forward, keeping several steps ahead of him, orbiting about him like a tiny version of his patron planet as he chattered about whatever came to mind.  
  
The Serenity glanced up at the clearing sky, adjusting his glasses.  Ten years.  It had been  only ten years, and already he was in the shoes of those who taught him.  Only Fate knew what was coming next.  
  
Despite the headaches it brought, he had to admit, he was looking forward to it.


End file.
